Walter Keohler Beckett (27 July 1914 – 3 April 1996) was an Irish composer, teacher and music critic. He was a cousin of the writer

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

Life

Beckett was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. His parents were Elizabeth Ethel Beckett (née Keller) and James Beckett, politician and builder. He studied organ with George Hewson and harmony with

John F. Larchet John Francis Larchet (13 July 1884 – 10 August 1967) was an Irish composer and teacher. He studied at Trinity College Dublin (MusB 1915, MusD 1917), also at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM) with Michele Esposito. Larchet was music dire ...

at the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM), in addition to music at Trinity College Dublin where he was conferred with a Mus.D. (Doctor of Music) in 1942.Axel Klein: "Beckett, Walter", in: ''The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland'', edited by Harry White and Barra Boydell (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013). He lived from 1946 to 1963 in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, where he taught English and piano; he also wrote reviews from abroad for the

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

and made a series of orchestral arrangements of Irish traditional music for

Radio Éireann Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

. In 1963 he moved to England, where he taught music at various schools before returning to Ireland in 1970 to succeed

A.J. Potter Archibald James Potter (22 September 1918 – 5 July 1980) was an Irish composer and teacher, who wrote hundreds of works including operas, a mass, and four ballets, as well as orchestral and chamber music. Early years Potter was born in Bel ...

at the RIAM as professor of harmony and counterpoint; however, after having suffered a stroke in 1985, he had to retire. In 1986 he was elected a member of Aosdána, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIAM in 1990. He died in Dublin in 1996.

Music

Beckett's more ambitious works from the 1940s and 1950s are a ''Suite for Orchestra'' (1945), ''Four Higgins Songs'' (1946), ''The Falaingin Dances'' (1958) and a ''Suite of Planxties'' (1960) for harp and orchestra. In the 1980s he produced a number of remarkable works such as the ''Quartet for Strings'' (1980) and a ''Dublin Symphony'' (1989) for narrator, chamber choir and large orchestra. While Beckett was never a modernist, his later works nevertheless contained some advanced harmony, particularly in the quartet.

Writings on music

Besides his activity as a music critic for the ''Irish Times'', Beckett also wrote biographical articles for dictionaries, in particular for the first edition of ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. His books include studies on

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

and ballet music: *''Liszt'' ("The Master Musicians" series) (London, 1956; revised edition, 1963) *''First Harmony Course'' (Dublin, 1976) *contributions to Humphrey Searle: ''Ballet Music: An Introduction'' (London, 1958; revised edition, 1973)

Compositions

Orchestral *''Suite for Orchestra'' (1945) *''Irish Suite'' (1952) *''The Enchanted Valley'' (1956) *''Irish Rhapsody'' (1957) *''The Falaingin Dances'' (1958) *''Suite of Planxties'' (1960) for harp and orchestra Other instrumental music *''Preludes'' (1942; rev. 1980) for piano *''Prelude'' (1960) for piano *''Quartet for Strings'' (1980) *''Occasional Voluntary'' (1985) for organ Vocal and choral *''Four Higgins Songs'' (

Frederick Robert Higgins Frederick Robert Higgins (24 April 1896 – 6 January 1941) was an Irish poet and theatre director. Early years Higgins was born on the west coast of Ireland in Foxford, which is located in County Mayo. He was the eldest son of Joseph and Annie ...

) (1946), for tenor and small orchestra *''Ancient Irish Lullaby (Suantraí)'' (trad. words, English translations by

Gerald Griffin Gerald Griffin ( ga, Gearóid Ó Gríofa; 12 December 1803 – 12 June 1840) was an Irish novelist, poet and playwright. His novel ''The Collegians'' was the basis of Dion Boucicault's play The Colleen Bawn. Feeling he was "wasting his time" wr ...

) (London, 1954), for female voices and piano *''An teicheadh go hÉigipt'' (anonymous) (1974), for soprano, mixed chorus and orchestra *''A dhroimín donn dílis'' (anonymous) (1974), for baritone and orchestra *''Goldenhair'' (James Joyce) (1980), song-cycle for low voice and piano *''Dublin Symphony'' ( Rhoda Coghill,

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

) (1989), for narrator, mixed chorus and orchestra

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beckett, Walter 1914 births 1996 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century Irish male musicians Alumni of the Royal Irish Academy of Music Aosdána members Irish classical composers Irish male classical composers Irish music critics Musicians from Dublin (city)